But what were you about?
When your father the devil was raging thus, what were you doing yourselves?
Had you no swords?
How came you to permit such lawlessness ?" "Eh! how did we come to permit such lawlessness?
You would have tried when there were fifty thousand of the Lyakhs (2) alone; yes, and it is a shame not to be concealed, when there are also dogs among us who have already accepted their faith." (2) Lyakhs, an opprobrious name for the Poles.
"But your hetman and your leaders, what have they done ?" "God preserve any one from such deeds as our leaders performed!" "How so ?" "Our hetman, roasted in a brazen ox, now lies in Warsaw; and the heads and hands of our leaders are being carried to all the fairs as a spectacle for the people.

That is what our leaders did." The whole throng became wildly excited.

At first silence reigned all along the shore, like that which precedes a tempest; and then suddenly voices were raised and all the shore spoke:-- "What! The Jews hold the Christian churches in pledge! Roman Catholic priests have harnessed and beaten orthodox Christians! What! such torture has been permitted on Russian soil by the cursed unbelievers! And they have done such things to the leaders and the hetman?
Nay, this shall not be, it shall not be." Such words came from all quarters.

The Zaporozhtzi were moved, and knew their power.

It was not the excitement of a giddy-minded folk.